Where?

October 5, 2011

Yesterday we had a lovely couple come into our store for lunch.  They were visiting from England and had read about us in a copy of Where Magazine which they found in their hotel.  It was a pleasure to host some out of town visitors to our wonderful city.

Our lunch service is becoming increasingly popular, especially since we have added some stools at our counter.  We now have an area where people can sit and enjoy their hot soup and pressed sandwiches, like these two Lovely Ladies Lunching at our counter!

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Take the Challenge – Update!

October 4, 2011

A few weeks ago we had the great pleasure of meeting Lynn Orgryzlo, food, wine & travel writer, and her husband Jon Ogryzlo, Dean of the Canadian Food & Wine Institute.  They were in town promoting Lynn’s latest book, The Ontario Table.  In her book, Lynn takes us on a journey and introduces us to the people, food and culture of Ontario’s local food.

While promoting her book on a tour through Ontario’s Farmer’s Markets, Lynn is also encouraging every household in Ontario to spend at least $10 a week local food and wine.  If every household in Ontario met this challenge, there would be a 2.4 billion dollar influx into the Ontario economy each year.

This week the City of Ottawa jumped on the bandwagon.  In a detailed article by Centretown News you can read all about it!

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Lavish Lunches!

September 29, 2011

Shari Goodman has written a lovely review of our lunches. To read more about it, click on the link.

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Having Fun with 100 Mile Ingredients

September 21, 2011

For those who partake of our fresh meal service, you know that we are in the thick of our 100 Mile Menus this week and next. There is so much to talk about with these meals.

Yesterday’s dinner featured pears from Halls Orchards near Brockville – a great place to visit for pick your own apples & pears.  We also featured a house made herbed spaetzle using red fife wheat and whole grain spelt flours, both locally ground and milled.  Red Fife is an heirloom grain that we get from Castor River Farm near Metcalfe.  Their biodynamic, off grid, organic farm is a wonder and their website is loaded with interesting information.  Red Fife is what is know as a landrace, meaning there is genetic variability in the wheat, allowing it to adapt to a diversity of growing conditions. The kernel is red in colour and Fife is the name of the farmer who began growing it in 1842.  The Spaetzle turned out beautifully.  It was dark in colour, nutty in flavour, and full of nutrients as the two grains still contained their bran and germ.

Tonight’s dinner is a vegetarian wonder.  We made the creamiest ricotta from scratch, which is a fun and relatively easy thing to experiment with in your own kitchen.  The ricotta was garnished with roasted local tomatoes & organic garlic, and a drizzle of organic sunflower oil, which is available in our retail store.  This product is grown, harvested and pressed in Les Cedres, Quebec (103 miles from our store).

The terrine was made by layering grilled local vegetables and herbed tofu from La Soyarie, a Gatineau based company that has been producing quality tofu for the last 25 years, using Canadian soybeans.

The whole grain pilaf is a medley of organically grown oats, wheat and barley and is seasoned with caramelized onions and a fresh herb and butternut vinaigrette.  This meal has been extremely labour intensive to produce, but well worth the effort.

Tomorrow’s meal features organic Heritage Tamworth pork lovingly and humanely raised by Aartje den Boer.   At The Pickle Patch, everyone works. “The sheep graze to keep the pastures and lawn under control, the pigs ‘plough’ the fields and get them ready for planting, the piglets weed the garden with their little trowel noses, and of course, everybody fertilizes,” says Aartje .

All the lovely juices in the stew can be soaked up with one of our house made whole spelt buttermilk biscuits.  We actually used the whey that was a byproduct of making the ricotta in these biscuits, instead of the buttermilk.  They are truly yum!

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100 Mile Menus Start Next Week

September 14, 2011

For two weeks each year we challenge ourselves to create exciting and delicious menus, using ingredients sourced from within 100 miles of our store exclusively.  We have completed the this year’s menus and the first week is posted on our website.  For more details, click on the link!

100 mile menu 2011

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